“I’ll try,” he said.
“While I’m working your shoulder, maybe you can tell me about what you experienced at the train station just now.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. I think I need to loosen up a little.”
— Chapter 5 —
RUNAWAY TRAIN
Dusk
The young fireman had no sooner closed the door to the fuel car than there came a pounding from the inside. Impossible, he thought, I must be imagining things. He turned his back on the door, leaned on his shovel, and continued watching the two engineers work the controls. He still had a lot to learn.
Bam bam bam.
This time it was loud enough for the engineer and his assistant to hear over the engine. They had their hands full so they instructed the fireman to go investigate. The boy unlatched one of the swinging doors, and out came a big man wrapped in an overcoat and brandishing a sawed-off shotgun. He looked like he’d just climbed through a coal mine.
“There’s a cow on the tracks,” he said.
This was his opener. He said it loud enough that he wouldn’t have to repeat it, probably thinking it was too good a line to waste. The engineer and his assistant pulled their eyes off the grimy wall of dials and gauges and faced him.
“Who the hell are you?” demanded the engineer.
“I gotta make a transfer; you’re going to stop this thing.”
The engineer hesitated, considered his assistant and the fireman who, with his thin, coal-smeared face was staring blankly at the gangster, bootlegger, or whatever he was.
“But we only just stopped at Maidstone — we’re up to speed now.”
“Do it,” barked the big man, and he raised the shotgun so that it was eye level with the engine cab trio.
The engineer wised up quick. “Like you said, mister.” He and his assistant started pulling this and turning that — all the things they needed to do to make a sudden, unscheduled stop. The fireman stood aside and waited for further orders.
It was quickly becoming dark. The bootlegger kept his shotgun fixed on the railmen while he looked outside for his markers: Three oil-drum fires in a farmer’s field.
“Is that Sexton Sideroad coming up?” he asked the engineer.
“Yep.”
“Okay, you’ll be stopping somewhere before you cross Middle Road, so get ready. Is that cord the train whistle?”
“Yes, but —”
The bootlegger gave it a couple pulls and continued to check for his markers.
Four men in black sitting two-by-two and facing each other in the back corner of one of the passenger cars felt the train slowing and checked their wristwatches. One of them immediately got up and started making his way through the car in the direction of the engine. Another followed very shortly. The third remained seated while the fourth took up a position at the back door of the car. They moved in silence, with ease and precision.
The car was dimly lit, making it even more difficult to see their faces beneath their wide-brim hats, to judge the cut of their clothes, or to understand their intent. They were like shadows; rather than reflect light, they actually seemed to absorb it. After some murmuring among the passengers, the car fell silent again and no one interfered or so much as mentioned them. To many of the passengers they were invisible, and to others they seemed to represent something otherworldly. Those passengers looked away.
The train was slowing to a stop. The side of the first baggage car opened to a blast of swirling snow. A man in a big coat leaned out and started swinging a lantern. A much larger man came to the door dragging a couple of heavy suitcases. He staggered like a drunk but it was just the rhythm of the train that was throwing him off.
“There they are. See?”
“But can you see the haystack?” said the one with the suitcases. “We don’t want to be waiting around here any longer than we have to.”
“It’s right there in front of you.”
“Hey, I’m not the one with the lantern, am I? And stop swinging it around like that.”
“Like what?”
“You almost hit me.”
“Would you relax?” said the lantern-bearer. “I swear you’re worse than my old lady.”
“Drop dead, Mouse.”
Barney, the one doing the heavy lifting, grabbed one of the suitcases by the handle and, with both hands, swung it back and forth to give it some momentum and then heaved it toward the haystack just beyond the narrow ditch.
The farmer got out of his Model T pickup and retrieved the suitcase. He opened it in the headlight beams. Inside the case were about a dozen bottles of rye packed in newspaper. The farmer gave his “okay.” Barney started tossing the rest of the order onto the haystack. Two younger men hopped out of the back of the pickup to help retrieve it.
“Why has this train stopped?”
The first man in black had reached the engine cab just as the train had come to a halt. He didn’t come by way of the fuel car but rather off the shoulder of the track, surprising the bootlegger.
“His orders,” said the engineer, pointing at the bootlegger.
The bootlegger couldn’t get a good look at the shadowy figure, couldn’t make him out. “You a cop?”
“No.”
A light flickered in the bootlegger’s head. “Hey, wait a minute — this is my caper. If you want in, you’re a bit late.”
“This train is scheduled to arrive at Michigan Central station in Windsor at 9:15 p.m.”
The bootlegger cocked his head at the shadow. “You’re not after the booze?”
“No.”
“Then why don’t you just go back to your seat and finish your crossword before you get hurt, okay?”
It got crowded in the engine all of a sudden: the engineer and his assistant backed up against the hissing wall of dials and gauges as soon as they saw that one of the bootlegger’s partners had appeared out of nowhere and was positioning himself behind the man in black. His partner was just as big, and in all likelihood just as stupid.
“Need any help finding your seat, fella?” he said.
Without hesitation and with very little effort, the man in black grabbed the fireman’s coal shovel out of his hands, spun, and bashed the second bootlegger across the face with it. An explosion of teeth, blood, and snot followed. The bootlegger staggered back and down onto the gravel shoulder, rolling into the frozen ditch that ran between the track and the farmer’s field.
The first bootlegger, stunned, pivoted his shotgun toward the man in black, but in one swift motion the dark figure grabbed the barrel with one hand and the bootlegger’s neck with the other. The bootlegger let go of the shotgun in order to better defend himself but the figure was already pressing the bootlegger’s face against the fire door. It made a sizzling sound and the bootlegger started wailing. The figure then picked him up effortlessly by his lapels and tossed him out the cab, landing him somewhere near his partner. The figure then calmly shifted his attention to the engineers and the fireman.
“You have some time to make up,” he told them and handed the fireman back his coal shovel. “Get stoking.”
The team didn’t ask any questions and got right to work. They noticed there was a second man in black in the cab now. They looked identical, but still indescribable. They were all shadow and seemed to blend together, moving like a two-headed beast.